LIMA, Peru — Even by Peru’s recent chaotic standards, this Sunday’s presidential vote risks confusing and frustrating the country’s 27 million voters. A record 35 candidates are on the ballot — a reflection of deep political instability that has produced nearly a new leader each year. The ballot is jumbo-sized with candidates’ photos and party symbols, a longstanding practice in a country with historically low literacy.
Most contenders are unknowns polling at about one percent or less. Amid broad anger at the political class, even better-known figures have failed to gain traction, making a June run-off between the top two candidates all but inevitable.
Leading the field, though only narrowly, is Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the late and disgraced 1990s strongman Alberto Fujimori. She has tried to walk a tightrope: invoking her father’s record on crushing hyperinflation and the Shining Path insurgency while distancing herself from his human rights abuses and corruption. She consistently polls near 10%, a figure that may be both her floor and ceiling, with many Peruvians blaming her and her Popular Force party for a decade of instability that included multiple impeachments and turmoil in government. A recent survey found 54% of Peruvians saying they would never vote for her. Still, Keiko is positioned to reach a fourth consecutive run-off — as she did in 2011, 2016 and 2021 — though she could be defeated again in the final stage.
Trailing her are half a dozen candidates clustered in the mid-to-high single digits, any of whom could, with a late surge, win a spot in the run-off. Among them is Rafael López Aliaga, an ultra-conservative former mayor of Lima sometimes dubbed “the Peruvian Trump.” He has already made unsubstantiated claims of imminent electoral fraud and reportedly issued death threats to the head of ONPE, the electoral agency. The field also includes Carlos Álvarez, a Fujimori ally better known for parodying politicians than for policy, and Ricardo Belmont, an octogenarian left-wing populist whose long career has been punctuated by repeated sexist, homophobic and xenophobic remarks.
Polls show Peruvians overwhelmingly want fresh faces unconnected to the current congress, which has passed laws critics say favor organized crime and which suffers near 90% disapproval. “It is based on the certainty that high-level corruption has fueled a decade of political instability, and that a tacit alliance of political leaders bent on impunity and state plunder has cleared the way for organized crime to flourish in the streets,” says Samuel Rotta, head of anti-corruption group Accion Civica, explaining citizens’ disgust.
That anger is understandable in a country gripped by an extortion epidemic, a recent record homicide rate, and worsening hunger: the World Food Programme reports food insecurity rose from 25% before the pandemic to 51% now.
On Sunday, Peruvians have a chance to change course. But with a crowded field where most candidates struggle to break double digits, the immediate outcome looks likely to be another run-off, prolonging political uncertainty as the country grapples with crime, corruption and deep social distress.